1931 Salvadoran coup d'état

1931 Salvadoran coup d’état
The Directory in December 1931. Colonel Osmín Aguirre y Salinas is the fifth from the right and Maximiliano Hernández Martínez is seventh from the right.
Date 2 December 1931 Location El Salvador Result Arturo Araujo overthrown Civic Directory established
Belligerents
Salvadoran Government	Salvadoran Armed Forces Salvadoran Army Salvadoran Air Force
Commanders and leaders
Arturo Araujo	Maximiliano Hernández Martínez Osmín Aguirre y Salinas Joaquín Valdés Juan Ramón Munés

The 1931 Salvadoran coup d’état occurred on December 2, 1931. The coup overthrew President Arturo Araujo and led to the establishment of the Civic Directory of El Salvador.

Coup and Directory

The Salvadoran Armed Forces toppled the government of the democratically elected President, Arturo Araujo, the candidate of the Salvadoran Labor Party. During his administration, El Salvador faced political tension and public unrest. Tax reforms also failed to succeed due to resistance from the wealthy class.

The final straw for the coup was an attempt to reduce the military budget which was met by heavy resistance by military officers. With the government being unable to pay wages to military officers, the army staged the coup to remove Arturo Araujo’s administration.

The military officers established a Directory as a provisional government generally led by General and former Vice President Maximiliano Hernández Martínez and Colonel Osmín Aguirre y Salinas.

Legacy

The Directory would be dissolved on December 4 and Maximiliano Hernández Martínez assumed the Presidency as “Acting President”. He would later officially become President on March 1, 1935.

The coup led to the subsequent 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre where Feliciano Ama and Farabundo Martí lead poor Salvadoran peasants in a communist rebellion against Martínez’s government leading to 25,000 deaths.